Four Memories and An Accident
by stormsandsins
Summary: Five drabbles produced by a music meme. Two are spoilerish as of 2x18.


**Author's note**: There's this music meme making the rounds on livejournal where you put your iTunes/WMP/whatever on shuffle and get inspired by the first 5/10/however many songs that come up. I thought I'd give it a go. And just as a heads-up... most are angsty. Not my choice I swear! Aren't most love songs sad anyway? Or is that just my personal taste...

* * *

**1. Paramore // I Caught Myself**

You got it, you got it  
_Some kind of magic_  
_Hypnotic, hypnotic_  
_You're leaving me breathless_  
_I hate this, I hate this_  
_You're not the one I believe in_.

Clean slate, she tells herself. She's seen the Big Man and He's apparently forgiven her everything so Blair can breathe in relief knowing the likes of Chuck Bass can't, _won't_, affect her judgement again. It's her seventeenth birthday today and things will go as planned from now on. Nate will see reason, and oh, the day looks bright and full of promises. He'll be there tonight, or call. He will. They're too good together to be apart and he'll see. They'll be good again.

Then Chuck _Bass_ shows up in his limousine – _the­_ limousine – and it's all she can do not to start flailing in wholly unladylike behaviour. What is this? Penance for her recent sins? Because honestly, it's not working. _He's_ not helping and her mind is definitely not being a good girl right now.

God hates her.

.

**2. Unknown // Maneater (instrumental)  
**

The music is very civilised in the next room, where the pleasant voices of pleasant people offer calculated pleasantries to each other, in wrong synchrony with their heartbeats that are anything but civilised or pleasant. They're barbarous and selfish, they want what the other can offer, no matter the vicious pounding against ribs. It nearly hurts it is so painful. A year is far too long. They are ravenous.

But she isn't herself, he reminds himself with difficulty. As she slithers against him and her heartbeat matches his own accelerated one, he has trouble focusing back on the lilting music in the other room but he ultimately succeeds, though it physically hurts.

He opens his eyes after a time, meets hers. _She's changed, she's changed, she's changed_ is a mantra inside his head because he's dying to se if maybe he can match her right this moment or bring back the whole Blair she used to be.

She'll be the death of him.

.

**3. Shout Out Louds // Go Sadness**

_I saw the brightest light  
It was the most wonderful sight  
And I spotted the right time  
The future is mine._

"You sure you're okay?" Nate squeezed her hand gently as he murmured the words.

"Fine," the brunette answered in a clipped tone. Sometimes you had to take what you got and work doubly hard to make sure you could go on unscathed. So landing NYU was mildly humiliating. She'd show Yale. Waldorfs did not give up.

"Good, then I'll see you at the reception tonight?" he asked as they exited the café with last-minute knick-knacks in their bags. Blair nodded, silent. He leaned in for a soft kiss.

Yet it wasn't Nate's lips she felt or his tongue that enveloped hers. It wasn't a sweet kiss but one of renewal and happiness. And she heard three syllables over and over echoing her old ones in a soft, smoky voice that caressed her with its hope.

She'd love to go back.

.

**4. Trading Yesterday // For You Only**

_There's a hunger, it's slowly growing  
Chasing shadows but never knowing  
If all that I have done is keeping me from you  
Then can the arms of mercy bring me the rescue to return to you?_

T Day: Tuscany for two. I know just the right places and they are _perfect_.

T Day+1: Coward.

T Day+2: She stopped asking where I am. At least, I think that's what the text said. I deleted it before I could get sober enough. Speaking of, there's a bottle or two calling.

T Day+6: There must be something wrong with my chest.

T Day+39: Never liked this thing. Anyway, Brazilians. They certainly like 'zilian better. Excellent sights.

Who the hell's counting anyway? Am learning their native tongues and they mine. Proficient learners all around.

Still prefer the bottle. Shut the fuck up, Gossip Girl.

_Quand il me prend dans ses bras, qu'il me parle tout bas, je vois la vie en rose. Il me dit des mots d'amour, des mots de tous les jours et –_ Shut the fuck up, Edith Piaf. It's a relief you're already dead.

Beach with the 'zilians. They never disappoint. Wish I had stronger stuff though.

Strike that thought. Can't talk. Wish me luck.

.

**5. Tesla // Only You**

_In a world far from perfect… still  
One never knows what to expect, so tell me what will I do?  
So hard to think of you as "dearly departed"  
If only desperation could resurrect_.

Oh, she saw it coming from so far away she should have been struck stupid for being intentionally blind about it. If only she could have been; instead she's been forced to witness the total destruction of Chuck Bass even though he's not in town anymore.

But she sees it in her mind.

She sees smoke and whores and all the usual elements of hedonism that have been _monnaie courante_ in his life, combined and multiplied to suck Chuck down its spiraling, debilitating path. She imagines him worse even then she's ever seen him. if she thought the funeral was bad, she knows it's worse now.

_But it's the not-really-seeing that kills her. She pretends to listen when people and teachers talk, but she's following him, trying to find a part of him inside herself that she can bring back, but the memories always merely slip through her fingers because she knows she can't erase the present._


End file.
